Abstract

When Australian celebrities sign on with a new agent, they are commonly asked two
questions: which designer will dress them, and which cause will they represent.
Explicit in the first question is the understanding that image for the modern celebrity
is vital. It is also explicit in the second. What is less clear is how this exchange
between celebrities, their audiences and their chosen cause – or, indeed, a cause, the
public and its chosen celebrity – interacts with news journalism and, more
specifically, impacts on journalistic representation of politics. This interaction is
important to understand. News access and representation are limited resources for
which various elite and non-elite political contenders vie. Protest movements seek to
harness the power of celebrities to increase their visibility and the saliency of their
messages in the news media, while celebrities, in representing non-elite political
groups, can extend their credibility and representativeness beyond their established
audiences. What has made this transaction increasingly possible is the transformation
that has occurred in recent years to news content and journalistic practice.